Posted 3 years ago on May 19, 2012, 10:59 a.m. EST by MEHassa
(24)
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The Supreme Court ruled out limits for corporate donations. People need to fight this. Corporates are not people, we need to ban all donations from non humans to political parties.
And we need to limit human donations to political parties by $10 per person per month. Its not about how much donation, its about how many voices, and poor people have voices too.

Political campaigns doesn't need too much money, they could just put their thinkings on the net and on tv. They spend this much money because their competitors spend that much money.
Another downside of corporate donations is that nice good competent people from the middle class didn't have enough to actually have a chance at winning the election. People need to limit this crazy spending, political campaigns could be delivered without spending this much money.

12 Comments

Don't limit donations. Limit spending to $200 per candidate per election by every group, organization, special interest, or individual, wealthy or poor. This keeps their free speech rights intact as well.

I agree with your motive to limit the wealthy's control of the political process. The problem is that corporations, wealthy individuals, and special interest groups all have a right to free speech including buying TV advertising to express their views. They have free speech, the problem is this unfair speech is guaranteed by the constitution.

Any law to limit spending must be constitutional or else the supreme court will keep overturning it.

True, but would private companies or individuals organize their own campaigns for political candidates? And if they did would they put their own reputation on the line? People can see who's advertising.
And if they said something wrong or detrimental about political candidates would they bear the risk of being sued?
My idea is to ban donations for political parties, and for political purposes ofcourse, just like they could ban bribes.

Individuals and corporations already organize their own campaigns for an against candidates. That is what "Citizens United" is about, outside money that does not go directly to the candidates, but is spent without their control.

The people and corporations behind this advertising are usually not visible to the public unless they dig a little. They just see an ad for or against someone assuming it is run by the candidates election committee.

It is allowed by the "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling. The right of Corporations, special interest groups, and wealthy individuals to "free speech", to run ads for or against whoever they wish with no spending limits at all.

Legislating a spending limit without limiting their right to free speech will be a difficult task.

Sigh, what to do? I'm from Indonesia so I don't know much, but shouldn't you declare your identity on every public messages you made?

If you ban donations to political parties, its not a limitation to free speech, since people could campaign for themselves. They could put their words in youtube and such. Foxnews could reject people who couldn't pay enough for commercials, surely you wouldn't arrest them for violation of the freedom of speech.
Why couldn't you limit donations to political parties? Just to political parties, you could always talk about anything on youtube.

We already have many laws that limit contributions directly to candidates, political parties, and other groups.

They can bypass those laws by the "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling. The law currently is that anyone, a person or corporation or any other group can spend as much as they want for or against a candidate as long as the money is spent without the knowledge or direction of the candidate they support.

actually this is how OWS could fight corporate influence in this country. This is the core of their claws stabbing deep into this government. Remove this claws and the country would be democratic again.